[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 4/3/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

April 3, 2008

 

1.  Top Item

 

Column: There's still no end in sight to California's water wars

Los Angeles Times – 4/3/08

By George Skelton, LA Times columnist

 

SACRAMENTO — Fortunately, winter snowfall in the Sierra was average. So homes haven't flooded in the Central Valley. Neither is there a drought, at least caused by nature.

 

There is a court-caused drought, of sorts, because a federal judge is trying to protect a vanishing little fish, the smelt, from being sucked into and chomped up by giant water pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

 

Consequently, there's a 30% cut in deliveries of southbound water from Northern California.

 

But this is noticed primarily by San Joaquin Valley farmers.

So although it's fortunate that no swollen rivers have burst their banks or carwashes have been padlocked, it's also unfortunate in a way. Because public pressure is off politicians and water warriors to finally fix California's old, vulnerable plumbing system.

We're getting close to the 50th anniversary of the last time Sacramento achieved anything really significant regarding water development. In 1959, newly elected Gov. Pat Brown cajoled and coerced the Legislature -- and later the voters -- into enacting the then-controversial California Water Project.

That came only after killer floods had inundated Northern California four years earlier. It was the worst flooding in nearly a century. The main culprit was the Feather River, a major tributary of the Sacramento River.

 

The Feather flooded Yuba City and Marysville, killing more than 20 people and floating houses toward San Francisco Bay, 130 miles southwest.

"We must build now and ask questions later," declared state water director Harvey Banks, an exhortation he used in his many speeches selling the water project. The fish-chomping Delta pumping plant later was named after Banks.

Brown formed a coalition of flood-frightened northerners, parched valley farmers and thirsty southerners to build the huge Oroville Dam on the Feather River. He also built the California Aqueduct to deliver water south.

But Brown ran out of money for a third vital piece of the plan: a peripheral canal to funnel Sacramento River water around the fragile, brackish Delta and directly into the southbound aqueduct. Since then, the Delta fishery has tanked -- not just the tiny smelt, but popular salmon and striped bass.

After Brown, Gov. Ronald Reagan also fell short of money and delayed building the canal. Gov. Jerry Brown persuaded the Legislature to reauthorize the big ditch, but an unlikely coalition of rich farmers and skittish environmentalists talked voters into repealing the legislation. Paradoxically, the farmers thought Brown had provided too many protections for the environment while the environmentalists believed he hadn't provided enough.

And that's pretty much where we are today -- except that when these facilities were built, California had 16 million people. Today there are 38 million.

We didn't know back then about global warming reducing the Sierra snowpack and melting it faster, threatening even worse droughts and floods and making water storage even more crucial. And the earthen levees of the Delta mixing bowl weren't crumbling as they are today.

But there still are the same water wars: north versus south. Environmentalists versus developers. Everybody versus farmers. Delta farmers versus valley farmers.

"This issue is more important to the long-term economic viability of California than any other issue, including budget reform," says Steve Merksamer, a political lawyer, former chief of staff to Gov. George Deukmejian and a key player in a recently aborted attempt to sponsor a water bond initiative for the November ballot. "Without water, people die. Forget growth. People will die.

"And the fact is, water is going to get extraordinarily expensive. People are complaining about gas. Wait until they start seeing their water bills. Everybody's talking about raising rates. . . . I'm not even talking about if, God forbid, there's a massive earthquake that craters the Delta."

Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, who led the recent initiative effort, puts it simply: "The Delta is the heart of California's water-supply system. And if the Delta has a heart attack, we're not going to be able to deliver the water to the rest of the supply system."

The unsuccessful initiative attempt is the latest example of California's perpetual water gridlock. Frustrated with the Legislature's failure to strike a compromise, a coalition of business, agriculture, labor and water leaders drafted a $11.7-billion bond measure. It would have paid for dams, underground storage, environmental and levee fixes, and established criteria for some version of a peripheral canal.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) flew to Sacramento at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's invitation to help broker the deal, but the coalition began falling apart. The Westlands Water District, representing valley farmers, balked because the proposal didn't guarantee a Delta fix. The environmental lobby objected to the dams and a possible canal. Both told Feinstein the measure wouldn't pass. She backed off. And the coalition, lacking broad, bipartisan support, gave up trying to qualify a measure for November.

Feinstein fired off a letter to state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) declaring that she was "dismayed to learn that Democratic leadership in the state Legislature has refused to come to the table with the governor and Republican leadership to find a legislative solution to the water crisis."

Since then, there have been negotiations between Democratic Sen. Mike Machado, a water-savvy Stockton-area farmer, and the incoming Senate Republican leader, Dave Cogdill of Modesto. Both say they're making progress. But even so, the Assembly is showing little interest in water. And the Legislature seems mired in an awkward leadership transition. So it's looking like yet another year without progress.

"They could get it done," Feinstein told me, "if people would do what they're elected to do, which is to lead and solve problems, even if it's painful, and cut across special interests and do the right thing."

If history's any guide, they'll wait for the next deadly flood or drought. #

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-cap3apr03,1,5004053.column

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